Saturday, July 2, 2011

Will Perry of Texas Go "PC" on the License Plate?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------In Texas, License plates are a hot issue as the descendants of 120,000 Texas Confederate soldiers apply for a special plate... my bet is Governor Perry will go with the politically correct!--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, June 27, 2011

Late last week stories flooded Texas newspapers, and the airwaves about the efforts of one Not-for-profit veterans’ organization attempt to get a specialty license plate in Texas. Texas has issued more than 100 specialty plates, and has never turned down an application. But times they may be a changing, as Texas Department of Transportation waffles on a request made by the Texas Division Sons of Confederate Veterans ( S.C.V. )for a plate. the controversy? The seal of the S.C.V. is nothing less than the crimson cross of the Confederate battle flag!

A recent estimate indicates that between 50 and 80 million Americans, of all ethnicities are descendants of Confederate soldiers. Though little known and seldom reported, African Americans, Mexicans, and even American Indians served in the Army of the Confederate States. The last Confederate general to surrender, Stand Watie, was an Indian! General Watie surrendered Cherokee, Creek and Seminole forces on June 19 at Doaksville, Indian territory ( present day Oklahoma.) And while there were no African American officers in the US Navy, there was at least one in the Confederate Navy! In Texas, these specialty plates would be available to all.

The crimson battle flag which is a symbol for the Sons of Confederate Veterans has been seized on by racially oriented groups like the NAACP and the KKK. But the flag originally was a banner used on the battlefield. Hundreds of thousands of southerners, of all ethnicities, died while fighting under that flag. Tens of thousands of African Americans fought for the south, and it is an untold, ignored story of American history. Some would argue that many African Americans who fought for the South were slaves and thus had no choice. Is that different from the whites on both sides who were drafted and had no choice? One of the ugly truths of the great war is that the blacks were, for the most part, as loyal to the South as any other group. Though there were more than 3 million slaves in a nation of 9 million there was no slave revolt during the war. African Americans were truly loyal citizens of the Confederacy. A story not told because it is inconvenient. History is full of inconvenient truths.

But the battle flag is undeniably the most recognized symbol of the South in the South, in the United States, and across the globe. No other region in the United States has a symbol, much less a symbol so universally recognized. Until political correctness came along, and the agenda of social engineers to homogenize the United States, schools across the South played Dixie proudly. If you look at movies made in the 30's through the 60's you will hear Dixie and see the Confederate battle flag as sentimental symbols of regional pride used to stir the martial attitudes of much of the nation. When the wall fell in Berlin at the end of the Cold War, the Confederate battle flag was there! Why? Because across the world, the crimson flag is a symbol of opposition to an oppressive government!

For Rick Perry, whose aspirations for the White House seem to be blooming, this issue is a preliminary litmus test. You see the typical way to prove your moderation, or your development as an acceptable southerner is to turn your back on your own people. Perry has not been mister Courage in Texas. Last year when Arizona stood alone against the national media in its fight to gain control of the open borders of the state, Governor Rick Perry of Texas was nowhere to be found. Nope he was silent. While he has made speeches in the state, and apparently out of the state, chastising the US government for it's lack of border enforcement, he has done nothing as governor of the states with the longest international boundary. Just last week Mexican military forces crossed into Texas for a brief moment. But, Perry has not been a voice on this issue, not done anything to spur federal action.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans are a small organization nationally, only about 30,000. But they are growing as America experiences the 150th Anniversary, the Sesquicentennial, of the American Civil War, also known as the War for Southern Independence, the War of Secession, the War Between the States, Mr. Lincoln's War, or the War of Northern Aggression. Much of the centralized government we experience today, including the income tax, and the draft, come from this period of time.

Many other southern states already have the plates which the SCV seeks in Texas. In every Court battle concerning these plates, the Sons of Confederate Veterans have prevailed.

So will Governor Perry save taxpayers the expense of an expensive Court battle they will surely lose? Or will he allow his administration to block freedom of speech and go to Court so that he can appear to be some kind of compassionate conservative. Rick Perry may be compassionate, but his record indicates he is no conservative!

The battle in Texas indicates that the social phenomenon of "diversity" has its limits. There are groups which diversity does not include. 50 - 80 million Americans who are descendants of southern heroes are one of the groups not included in present day "diversity".